Scott Alexander has helped coordinate “Ballots Everywhere” meetups in several major cities for this November’s election From Scott: “Each election year, I’ve shared how I plan to vote in local elections. This year I want to scale up and produce voter guides for all the big US cities/states with a critical mass
For October’s discussion meetup, we will be discussing John Ioannidis’s 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” In addition to outright fraud (Ariely, Wansink, Francesca Gino (lawsuit!), etc.), there are quite a few more subtle and pernicious ways in which seemingly compelling results can be indistinguishable from, well,
In lieu of our normal “first Saturday of the month discussion meetup,” we will be hosting an Astral Codex Ten Meetups Everywhere meetup on Saturday, 9/7 in Ping Tom Park. These meetups tend to draw a larger and more varied group of people than a typical Chicago Rationality meetup, so
The next monthly discussion meetup is SUNDAY, August 4 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). For this month, we’re going to discuss the (supposed) decline of social capital (social connections), an idea popularized by Robert Putnam in “Bowling Alone”. Has social interaction declined? How does technology-mediated interaction factor
There are many famous historical examples of multiple people making the same discovery nearly simultaneously (calculus, natural selection, the telephone, etc.). Is this because inventions are inevitable and are “going to happen sometime soon” once all of the necessary pieces are in place? Or, do individual researchers shape the technological
The next monthly discussion meetup is Saturday, June 8 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). For this month, we’re going to try something different. We going to facilitate one-on-one discussions (note: not debates per se) with people that have (roughly) opposing views on particular issues. Essentially, we’ll poll
The next monthly discussion meetup is Saturday, May 4 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). For this meetup, we’ll be discussing the relationship between social media and mental health, with a focus on arguments by psychologist Jonathan Haidt (particularly from his new book) and some criticisms of his
For our April discussion meetup, we will discuss fertility. Robin Hanson has been blogging extensively about the topic and it has also entered the discourse. So, let’s talk about it! SUGGESTED READING As always, feel free to come even if you haven’t done the reading. This is just a starting
For our March discussion meetup, we’ll be diving into another topical Rationality subculture offshoot: the effective accelerationists (e/acc). A lot of this discourse is Twitter optimized, but there is a coherent techno-optimist ideology that is at odds with the more safety-conscious Berkeley rationality culture. We will discuss techno-optimism more broadly,
For our February discussion meetup, we’ll be hosting another round of lightning talks (and discussions). The lighting talks will be 5-10 minute presentations (plus additional time for discussion) presented by members of the Chicago Rationality community. The discussions will be less of a presentation and more of a short, participatory
